The online marketing world keeps taking leaps and turns. And if you have spent any time in marketing your brand on social media, then you are well aware of how difficult it is to reach your audience without paying for it, especially on social media giants like Facebook. That is why many companies turn to their employees to share and promote company based information on their personal profiles such as Instagram, Facebook and other platforms. The challenges arise in finding how you encourage them as an employer.

What is social media advocacy?

According to Hootsuit.com, “Social media advocacy means leveraging the social networks of the people who like you and/or are invested in your continued success: your customers and employees. For many companies, these two groups are their most substantial untapped resources as well as their biggest fans. While 18 percent of people trust brand influencers, 92 percent trust brand advocates. ”

How to Encourage Employees to Share Company Content

Your employees are one of the biggest, yet often most overlooked social media assets. They must be encouraged to talk about your company on social media. However, forcing them into re-posting and posting about the company is not the solution. Similarly, at the other end, merely hoping that your employees will become social media advocates isn’t a great idea either.If you want to encourage social media advocacy by your employees, you need to build a plan for doing this the right way. You have to find out methods that promote good content online without alienating your employees into submission.

Here are some approaches you can utilise to make your team into social media advocates:

Create share-worthy content

If your company is doing amazing things, then your content should be able to match that. It is essential for a brand to create content which is worth sharing. If your content is boring or irrelevant to your core values and aim, then it makes no sense to read or share it online. Similarly, your content should be diverse, touching on various subjects. However, your content should not be plagiarized. The best content is a balance of 50% curated and 50% original.

Tell them why it’s important

Just asking your employees to share your content is not the solution. Your employees must understand why and how this kind of advocacy affects your social media rankings. The employees must be aware of how social media marketing works and how their sharing will benefit the company. If the employees can see how their part plays a role in the company’s success, and get recognition for it, then they will definitely do as they are requested.

Offer resources and training

Your company may employ a variety of people. Some may be amazing at the social media game, others may not. Offering training courses and guides to your employees is essential. This way they can understand and utilise social media to their advantage. Such training and resources can be used to explain your company’s social media policy as well, which should be guidelines of how your employees should conduct themselves online. After all, your employees are your company’s face online.

Encourage diversity and individuality

It is essential to encourage your employees to share the content in their own unique styles. The content will seem more genuine to their friends and family. Content shared in an individual’s style will be regarded as more genuine and will get better traction. Besides, it is best to celebrate diversity in your company’s environment to empower your employees and make their workspace mentally and physically safe.

Acknowledge and report success

Thanking your employees for their effort is never a bad idea. For example, offering incentives is a great way to boost participation. Similarly, merely acknowledging people on the back-end for creating and sharing content is another way to do it. It is a way of letting your participating employees know that they’re doing the right thing. This, in turn, will encourage more employees to participate.

Easy sharing

When expecting employees to share your company’s content online, it is essential that you make sharing easy. By asking them to follow you on social networks or using advocacy applications like Choir, you make it easier to keep track of content sharing. Do not make many stringent rules regarding sharing and make sure your content is equipped with buttons for various platforms. This way, sharing content is just a click away.

Be a brand worth the hype

Last, but not the least, be a brand worth talking about. If you fail at this step, then every other step in this guide may fall to deaf ears. If you do not live up to your values and expectations in the eyes of your employees, then they may not want to share your content online with their friends and family. Before you try to raise yourself in the eyes of your consumers, it is imperative that you meet the expectations of your employees as well. Make sure that you have a strong company culture.

Word-of-mouth will always be the top influencer for buyers. Personal profiles get better reach and extend the visibility of a brand. Sharing the results of your team in social media advocacy will motivate them to work further on it. Encouraging employee advocacy on social media is an easily accomplished task, given that it is done correctly.